Coronavirus India Updates: India To Lift Night Curfew Outside Containment Zones, Reopen Gyms From Aug. 5 In Unlock 3.0

India has issued further guidelines for a phased reopening of the economy that are aimed at opening up more activities outside containment zones.

Restrictions on the movement of individuals outside containment areas during night have been removed, according to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. However, lockdown will continue to be strictly implemented in containment zones till Aug. 31.

What’s allowed

• Gyms and yoga institutes will be allowed to open from Aug. 5. Separate guidelines and standard operating procedures will be issued for the same.
• International air travel will be permitted in a limited manner under the Vande Bharat mission.

What’s not allowed

• Metro rail.
• Cinema halls, swimming pools, entertainment parks, theatres, bars, auditoriums and assembly halls.
• Social, political, sports, entertainment, cultural or religious functions.
• Schools, colleges and educational institutes shall remain closed till Aug. 31, 2020.

States and union territories, based on their assessment, can choose to prohibit certain of the allowed activities.

Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit isolated himself for a week based on doctor's advise, as three more people in the Raj Bhavan here have tested positive for Covid-19. However, the Governor is "fit and healthy," a Raj Bhavan communique said on Wednesday and indicated the move on isolation was a precautionary exercise.

"As a precautionary measure to last week Covid-19 cases, thirty eight persons of Raj Bhavan, Chennai, were tested for Covid-19. Out of them, thirty five persons are found to be negative and only three persons tested positive," it said. "Three members who tested positive have been shifted to hospital by the Health Department and undergoing treatment," the release explained.

On Tuesday, Raj Bhavan Medical Officer carried out regular health checkup of the Governor and found him "fit and healthy." "However, the doctor has advised him seven days isolation," the communique further said. Following this, the Governor has kept himself in isolation and the Raj Bhavan is closely monitoring the situation, it said.

Earlier, 84 security and fire services personnel deployed in Raj Bhavan had tested positive on July 23, but the Governor's office had then said none of them came into contact with Purohit or senior officials.

Source: PTI

Madhya Pradesh Water Resources Minister Tulsi Silawat and his wife have tested coronavirus positive.

The information was shared by the minister himself on his Twitter handle on Tuesday.

In the tweet, he appealed to those who had come in his contact to get themselves tested. Senior BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia wished the couple a speedy recovery.

State Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had last week tested COVID-19 positive. He chaired the first virtual cabinet meeting from hospital on Tuesday and said that if the infection is detected early, then it is not incurable.

A couple of days before Chouhan, state Co-operatives Minister Arvind Singh Bhadoria was also found infected with coronavirus.

Source: PTI

A sero-surveillance study done in Mumbai has revealed that 57% of slum population and 16 per cent of non-slum residents in three civic wards had developed antibodies, indicating many people would already be affected by Covid-19 than the official tally suggests.

The sero-surveillance had started on June 3 and 6,936 samples out of an estimated 8,870 were collected from slum and non-slum population of three civic wards - R-North, M-West and F-North - in the first half of July.

It showed high proportion of asymptomatic Covid-19 infection in the city.

The study revealed that 57% of slum population and 16 per cent of non-slum residents in these civic wards had developed antibodies, the BMC said on Tuesday. "These results will be valuable to learn more about herd immunity," stated a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation release.

Source: PTI

Coronavirus infections in India continue to mount as the country's total case tally crossed the 15-lakh mark.

India added 48,513 fresh cases in 24 hours, taking the total tally to over 15.3 lakh, according to the Health Ministry’s 8 a.m. update on July 29.

Key Figures

• Total number of confirmed coronavirus cases: 15,31,669
• Active cases: 5,09,447
• Cured/discharged/migrated: 9,88,029
• Deaths: 34,193
• Number of fresh cases in 24 hours: 48,513
• One-day recoveries: 35,175
• One-day deaths: 768

India’s coronavirus epidemic is growing at the fastest pace in the world, increasing 20% over the last week, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Tracker. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are among the states where the maximum number of daily cares are being reported.

Fresh cases continued to come in at a heightened pace, hovering just below 50,000 for the last six days.

Moderna Inc.’s vaccine candidate against Covid-19 protected against the virus in a trial that inoculated 16 monkeys, an encouraging step on the path to a defense for humans against the pandemic. Pfizer Inc., however, is preparing for the novel coronavirus to endure, leading to long-term demand for a seasonal shot to protect against Covid-19.

“There is a likely scenario that either the vaccine’s immunity will not be lasting forever,” said Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla in an interview Tuesday, “or that the virus will mutate, or that the virus will find ways to come back again and again.”

Even as the transmission rate of Covid-19 remains high in India, the pace of recovery has risen too. On Wednesday, India reported its third day of over 35,000 recoveries.

Global Update

Flare-ups in virus cases from Hong Kong to Europe are proving difficult for policy makers to wrangle. The U.S. neared 150,000 deaths from Covid-19, even as daily infections slowed in some hard-hit states. China reported 101 new cases, up from 68 a day earlier, with 98 of the total from local infections, mostly in Xinjiang.

Philippine health authorities warned that hospitals and infirmaries risk getting overwhelmed.

Globally, confirmed Covid-19 cases have topped 16.6 million with over 658,000 dead.

Track news and developments around the Covid-19 outbreak in India here.